Tuesday, 17 September 2013

Sixty-Five Fighting Years!

By New Worker correspondent

ON THE 9th SEPTEMBER 1948 the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was established in the free northern part
of the Korean peninsula that had once been part of the Japanese Empire. In the
DPRK it is a public holiday and hundreds of thousands of Koreans packed Kim Il
Sung Square in Pyongyang for a spectacular military and civilian parade through
the capital.

It’s a special
day for Koreans on both sides of the divided country and amongst the overseas
Korean community because on that day in 1948 the Korean people expressed their
democratic will through popular power and immediately took the first steps
towards building a new socialist life for the workers and peasants who had
fought to free themselves from the Japanese yoke that had enslaved them for
many decades.

It’s also special day for communists all over
the world who showed their solidarity with Democratic Korea. London was no
exception. Communists and Korean solidarity activists joined diplomats,
journalists and business-people at a lunch-time reception at the DPRK embassy that
was opened by DPRK ambassador Hyong Hak Bong last week.

Andy Brooks, Hyong Hak Bong and Michael Chant at the reception

The leaders of
the NCP and the RCPB (ML), Andy Brooks and Michael Chant, were there along with
veteran London communist Monty Goldman from the CPB, who was jailed for two
months for protesting against the Korean War, as well as Daphne Liddle, the
joint editor of the New Worker, and
Dermot Hudson from the Korean Friendship Association.

And Comrade
Hyong Hak Bong returned to south London as guest of honour at a meeting and
social to honour the 65th anniversary of the founding of the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea that was opened by Andy Brooks, who
chairs the Friends of Korea, in south London on Sunday.

The event, at
the south London headquarters of the RCPB (ML) kicked off with a spirited
rendition of the DPRK national anthem and the Song of Kim Il Sung by the violinist Leslie Larkum, who has
recently visited Democratic Korea. This was followed by the screening of a
documentary covering the recent visit of a RCPB (ML) delegation to Democratic
Korea produced by one of their own comrades.

Comrades heard lively
eye-witness reports from comrades who took part in the recent 60th anniversary
celebration in the DPRK of the Korean people’s victory in the Fatherland
Liberation War in July. Michael Chant, Leslie Larkum and Dermot Hudson painted
a vivid picture of Democratic Korea which is led by Kim Jong Un and guided by
Marxism-Leninism and the Juché Idea and also determined to struggle for
reunification and defend its socialist path.

Comrade Hyong Hak Bong addresses the meeting

And a 16-year-old student who was also in
Pyongyang in July told us about his impressions of the socialist capital and
his struggle to tell the truth at school about the reality of the DPRK today.

Other friends of
Korea, like John McLeod of the Socialist Labour Party and Theo Russell of the
NCP, who have also been to north Korea, joined in a general discussion that
ended with an appeal from Hyong Hak Bong for everyone to go to the DPRK, if
they can, and see for the new life for the Korean people with their own eyes.